The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) has announced that its 2012 Travel and Tourism conference will be held in Columbus, Ohio June 3-6, 2012. This year’s conference, titled “Strengthening the “R” in PR,” will focus on building relationships between people, places and the press.

The annual conference is the premier travel and tourism conference for public relations professionals. The Travel and Tourism section of the national society is the largest in the industry and one of the largest in the world.

The Columbus conference will focus on a variety of areas that are key for tourism public relations practitioners including best deployment of resources, relevant tools and tactics for tourism communications professionals and practical responses to the everyday challenges they face.

In addition to the top tourism public relations professionals who attend the conference, national media attends, as well. This year media attendees at the Columbus conference will include journalists from, among others, Time, USA Today, Home and Away and Associated Press.

“Columbus was chosen as the site of this year’s Travel and Tourism Conference because of the exceptional national attention it has been receiving as an emerging destination for visitors,” said Kay Maghan, Chair of the Travel and Tourism Section. “For Columbus “R” may well stand for “renaissance.”

Columbus has recently been lauded in national media including the Washington Post, The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, with the city being labeled as “a Midwestern style capital” and “a certified food lovers’ town,” the latter appropriate for this Midwestern metropolis that has one of the most innovative culinary and arts scenes anywhere in the U.S.

Columbus has also been recognized as one of the nation’s leading gay travel markets and recently was named among America’s “Top 5 Shopping Cities” by Forbes.

The city is also home to top-ranked attractions including the number one zoo in the country—the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, home to “Jungle Jack” Hanna—and the number one science center in the country, the Center of Science and Industry.